Journey Accessibility Task-Planning Program for Design Systems

Accessibility Task Planning for Design Systems Journey Accessibility Task-planning Program (ATP) | Jennifer Chadwick, CPACC, CUA

“What do I need to do?” • How do we roll out accessibility responsibilities within design systems, user research, DevOps? • What actions do we take, daily, monthly, yearly? • What tools, resources and training do we need? • What are the costs and timelines? • Is there a framework to measure and sustain success? 2

Acknowledge. Assess. Assign. ATP is a 3-step task-planning program over a four-week engagement. It breaks down your big-picture accessibility plan into small, actionable tasks for your Design System team and stakeholders. 3

Why ATP is for Design Systems Fact Outcome 47% of design systems now include accessibility Up from just 8.4% the prior year. ATP puts you firmly in the leading group. guidelines. 4 47% faster development when accessibility is already documented in components. Teams stop guessing per project and start building from a trusted source. 94.8% of websites still have WCAG failures. And 96% of those errors are common, componentlevel issues. A well-documented design system is the most scalable fix available. 91% of practitioners learn accessibility through on-the-job resources, not formal education. Your design system documentation is where they learn. Make it count.

Week 1 – Expert Review: The Homework Week. A seasoned, certified Accessibility Strategist does homework on your Design System to deliver: 5 Component accessibility audit. Review and report on your Design System’s highest-usage components – key accessibility failures (WCAG 2.2, EN 301 549) and why. User evidence (video or live demo). People with disabilities interacting with your product or service identify key usability and accessibility barriers to focus on. Your current design system decoded. Existing gaps in documentation and specs, knowledge requirements, and common roles and responsibilities within Design System team, design, content development. Design System Success Stories. Winning actions and 2–3 sector-specific use cases with statistics on downstream impact on product quality, legal risk, and team efficiency.

Week 1: Outcome This is the expert review step: making the issues real, but the opportunities and solutions clear — what to fix, where to start and what successful actions to take next in the form of small, manageable tasks. Next week: Task-planning workshops to get your team comfortable, skilled and ready for change. 6

Weeks 2 & 3 - Planning: The Workshop Weeks. Your Strategist presents the audit findings, shares user evidence and puts it in the context of next steps for the design system team. Acknowledge, Assess and Assign: Turning your Design System into the source for accessible components, documentation, disability knowledge and how-to resources — for every product team that builds from it. 7

The Workshop Weeks Step 1: Acknowledge. Understand and acknowledge the Expert-led workshop with: needs, preferences and barriers of • Use cases on how people with people with disabilities (PWDs). disabilities use your • Disability types & assistive product/service technologies • Global laws and standards • Design Systems success stories – what the top ones include 8 • “Ask Me Anything” session with people with disabilities • Documentation and code examples

The Workshop Weeks Step 2: Assess. The next step is to gather and assess Where are the accessibility gaps? How all current assets and skills in your to meet user needs & requirements? Design System team. We take the learnings from end users with disabilities in Step 1 and come to Step 2 with ideas for change. We map the user journey from end to end in your products and services. A team-led, expert inventory of: • Components, patterns, palettes • Current processes and specs • Knowledge maturity & ownership • zeroheight features to use • Cross-dept stakeholders & needs 9 • Priority areas for Step 3

The Workshop Weeks Step 3: Assign. The final step is task mapping • Assign primary tasks to each role to each role. • List actions to take with weekly, monthly Together with the Strategist, the team documents their new habits and skills: who’s doing what and when to improve, manage and sustain accessibility in the Design System. 10 and yearly milestones • Templates & How-to - Top 5 priority highest-usage components are documented first for maximum downstream impact • Mapping actions back to user needs, organisation requirements, laws and international standards

Weeks 2 & 3: Outcomes 11 Action Plan: roles, priority tasks & actions. Accessibility and disability knowledge. Capacity, confidence. Ownership of tasks. Daily, monthly & yearly milestones. List of zeroheight features, templates and tools. 10 hours of ongoing, expert support.

Week 4 – Advance: The Return Visit. Flexible timing. Customized to your design system’s maturity and release cycle. The default return date is 4 weeks after the Action Plan is delivered — enough time for the team to have worked through their top priority tasks, but not so long that the work stalls. Your Strategist works with you to choose the right moment. 12

Week 4 – Advance: Return Visit Deliverables. 13 Component validation. Have the top 5 priority components been updated? Your Strategist tests against WCAG 2.2 criteria and users with disabilities run a new accessibility & usability test. Progress review by role. Which tasks have been completed by UX, Visual Design, Front-End, Content, and QA? Who is on track? Troubleshooting. Where are roles stuck? Is Figma annotation workflow or specs unclear? Are code samples being applied? What does the team need? Wins celebration! Recognizing early movers builds the accessibility-first culture that sustains a design system long-term. Governance planning. In what ways are the team ensuring new components added to the system are accessible from day one? What does the review process look like going forward? Next milestone planning. What does the next 90 days look like? Which digital department is next?

Week 4: Outcomes Expert & user testing / validation of changes. Celebration of quick wins and impact. Progress report & next 90 days plan. The fourth week is where accessibility stops being a project and starts being the way your design system works. Want or need additional time and support? Let us know. 14

Recommended Check-ins 15 Scenario Suggested Timing Standard engagement 4 weeks with post-Action Plan Active sprint / release cycle Timed to next component release milestone Large component library (50+ components) 6–8 weeks — allows more components to be worked through Ongoing retainer Monthly “Ask Me Anything” sessions (users) + quarterly governance reviews (Strategist)

Add-ons: Ongoing support for success Co-Design Sessions Program Management Work together with people with disabilities to Need a partner to manage your Action Plan from start shape the accessibility of your product based on to finish? We offer a dedicated, certified project real user needs and preferences. manager (PMP, CPACC) specialising in accessibility Test an existing component or user flow, or review implementation. Figma designs before they’re built. Or simply ask 16 questions to feel more confident in your designs. Playful, effective task-tracking methods include Sessions are recorded with a transcript. Project Task Bingo and Project Object, a collaborative block-building exercise. .

Facilitator & Program Director Jennifer Chadwick, CPACC, CUA is an IAAP award-winning Digital Accessibility Strategist and former user experience (UX) designer with 15+ years experience guiding digital teams to understand, own and operationalise accessibility and disability needs. She is a policy advisor for WCAG 2.2, EN 301 549, EAA, ADA, ACA and World Wide Web standards (W3C) invited expert, contributing to WCAG 3.0 (AGWG). She has spoken at CSUN, M-Enabling Summit and United Nations COSP on the importance of accessibility documentation, go-to resources and component testing. In 2025, Jennifer wrote Chapter 6: Creating Inclusive Content for the bestselling book Inclusive Design for Accessibility. 17

Ready to chat? Book a 30-minute meeting with Jennifer via video call, text or your favourite messaging app. • Discuss your needs and goals • Get more information on pricing • Browse a method or framework to use Read testimonials from teams on how task-planning has super-charged accessibility efforts and led to success. Email: info@journey-accessibility.com Web: journey-accessibility.com 18